Can my husband baptise our baby without my consent?

CDfm

iguana wrote: »

Where exactly are you getting that from?

Im taking it from the OPs posts - a bit of conjecture and experience BTW.

VeryBerry wrote: »

Sorry if this the wrong forum, not sure where the most appropriate place is. Due a baby in a few weeks, and I'm just wondering if anyone knows if my husband can still have our baby baptised if I don't consent to it?

I am adamant I don't want to baptise the baby (was always very clear and open about this from the day we met), but he and his family do. I might be a bit more understanding if they were very religious and intended to bring the baby up as a Catholic. But they don't, i.e. no intention of bringing it to mass every Sunday, or teaching it about Catholicism etc. My husbands argument is that the the baby should be baptised "just in case".

Its really causing problems between us and his family. His mother has told him to that they'll just take the baby when its born and have it baptised without telling me. Can they actually do this??

Thanks

I am sympathetic to the OP and am trying to put it in perspective. The situation is not unusual.

I thought we had agreed. The pregnancy was a big surprise, completely unplanned. But prior to finding out about the baby, anytime the matter came up 'hypothetically' over the past 10 years, my husband was always fine about not baptising any possible children.

The thing is, we do more or less agree about how to bring up the child belief-wise. My hubby still doesn't believe in the teachings of the Church either - we got married in registry office because, for us personally being 'token' Catholics really didn't sit right. He still has no intentention of bringing the child up as a Catholic - he just suddenly seems to want to get it baptised because his Mammy says so!

I know people say it does no harm, but it to me it feels like baptising the baby is already getting it off to a bad start and giving it a bad example. Its like saying to it "Well, Mammy and Daddy are going to sign you up to an organistion who's teachings we really disagree with, just for an easier life all round."

I would feel like a hypocrite. I would feel like I'm meant to be teaching my child right from wrong, and the first example I set it involves compromising my whole belief system for an easier life. It would be like I was saying "Well, we don't believe in the Church, but everybody gets baptised/confirmed etc, so its ok to do what everyone else does, even if you think its wrong". It would be like teaching the baby that when things get a bit hard, its ok to give up on what you think is right.

I always though my husband and I agreed on this. But I think I'll follow the advice from posters who said to leave it all now, and talk about it again a few months after the baby is born. Maybe one, or both of us, will feel different when the baby is here.

It is not a nice place to be caught between your mother and wife and both entrenched in positions and on a good day the two women just about tolerate one another.

benj

VeryBerry wrote: »

Sorry if this the wrong forum, not sure where the most appropriate place is. Due a baby in a few weeks, and I'm just wondering if anyone knows if my husband can still have our baby baptised if I don't consent to it?

adamant I don't want to baptise the baby (was always very clear and open about this from the day we met), but he and his family do. I might be a bit more understanding if they were very religious and intended to bring the baby up as a Catholic. But they don't, i.e. no intention of I am bringing it to mass every Sunday, or teaching it about Catholicism etc. My husbands argument is that the the baby should be baptised "just in case".

Its really causing problems between us and his family. His mother has told him to that they'll just take the baby when its born and have it baptised without telling me. Can they actually do this??

Thanks

why you so adamant not to baptise the baby? what harm can it do?

dresden8

Drag his ass to mass every Sunday at 9 in the morning. Tell him if you're doing it you're doing it properly.

jhegarty

Silly question for the OP.

Did you get married in a church or civil ceremony ?

CDfm

jhegarty wrote: »

Silly question for the OP.

Did you get married in a church or civil ceremony ?

It was a registry office from her posts.

I am adamant I don't want to baptise the baby.........he just suddenly seems to want to get it baptised because his Mammy says so!

these are the quotes from OP that does it for me

nesf

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Just do it. You can't indoctrinate a baby. Not worth causing all the hassle this will bring.

This would be my cynical view of things. Sure if you're an atheist it's just a silly ritual with a dash of water on the child's head.

Toots

nesf wrote: »

This would be my cynical view of things. Sure if you're an atheist it's just a silly ritual with a dash of water on the child's head.

That's one way of looking at it, but in the OP's case, her partner is trying to force her to initiate a child into a religion that she has a major problem with, not simply one in which she does not believe.

If my OH wanted to 'baptise' our child into the Protestant faith, I'd be cool with it. I don't believe in Christianity, but I've no problem with that. I do however have issues with the Catholic church, and would not be happy having my children baptised into that church. (so you can expect a similar thread here in about 5 yrs:p)

nesf

Toots85 wrote: »

That's one way of looking at it, but in the OP's case, her partner is trying to force her to initiate a child into a religion that she has a major problem with, not simply one in which she does not believe.

If my OH wanted to 'baptise' our child into the Protestant faith, I'd be cool with it. I don't believe in Christianity, but I've no problem with that. I do however have issues with the Catholic church, and would not be happy having my children baptised into that church. (so you can expect a similar thread here in about 5 yrs:p)

See while I've got major problems with certain elements of the Catholic Church I really do not see why you would generalise them beyond those elements to cover things like the ritual of Baptism. Someone baptising their child isn't tacitly approving of the rest of the church by doing so.

Also, for a religious person, not baptising a child is a pretty big deal so it's understandable for this to be an issue. My mother is extremely un-intrusive because of a bad relationship with her mother in law but if we decided to not baptise our kids there'd be trouble over it.

Toots

True, but in this case, the OP is not happy with it, she doesn't want anything to do with the Catholic Church. Her husband's argument that the child should be baptised 'just in case' could be solved by baptising the child as a Christian, just not a Catholic. However I think the big issue here, as I said before, is that her husband seems to be more concerned about keeping his family happy than his wife.

nesf

Toots85 wrote: »

However I think the big issue here, as I said before, is that her husband seems to be more concerned about keeping his family happy than his wife.

Eh, it could be that his personal opinion agrees more with his family than his wife no? We are getting only one side of the story here after all.


Plus sometimes the wife is wrong you know...

CDfm

nesf wrote: »

Eh, it could be that his personal opinion agrees more with his family than his wife no? We are getting only one side of the story here after all.

This is my feeling too

Plus sometimes the wife is wrong you know...

Maybe the OP has argued with the OPs family on other issues and while she can intellectalise the argument the need to win it takes over.

luckat

VeryBerry, you've said that you disagree with baptism, and that you thought your husband did too, and that you still feel this way.

I think you need to find out why your husband has changed his mind. And why his family want to baptise the baby. Why are their feelings so strong?

How do your own family figure in this? What's their feeling?

Incidentally, a small story of my own. My mother and uncle, children of a 'mixed marriage' were baptised Catholic for peacemaking reasons. When both parents died young, the children were given to the Catholic side of the family by the courts because of this baptism.

LordSutch

VeryBerry wrote: »

Due a baby in a few weeks, and I'm just wondering if anyone knows if my husband can still have our baby baptised if I don't consent to it?

I am adamant I don't want to baptise the baby (was always very clear and open about this from the day we met), but he and his family do. I might be a bit more understanding if they were very religious and intended to bring the baby up as a Catholic. But they don't, i.e. no intention of bringing it to mass every Sunday, or teaching it about Catholicism etc. My husbands argument is that the the baby should be baptised "just in case".

Its really causing problems between us and his family. His mother has told him to that they'll just take the baby when its born and have it baptised without telling me. Can they actually do this??

Thanks

Amazing stuff in a scary way, it sounds like something out of the 1970s when all Roman Catholic babies in Ireland had to be baptised almost as they exited the womb, just in case they died & went to limbo . . :rolleyes:

'But this is 2009' limbo doesn't exist & you don't want you baby baptised in the RC Church, and your partner should respect this 100%. Personally speaking we have decided that we will have our baby baptised as a Christian (not RC), no rush either (probably three to six months after he/she is born), but like everything we do for 'little one' its all agreed well in advance, no messing around.

seamus

CDfm wrote: »

It is not a nice place to be caught between your mother and wife and both entrenched in positions and on a good day the two women just about tolerate one another.

He shouldn't be allowing himself to get "caught". His mother has no position here, her input is appreciated but ultimately occupies a much lower rung on the priority ladder.

CDfm

seamus wrote: »

He shouldn't be allowing himself to get "caught". His mother has no position here, her input is appreciated but ultimately occupies a much lower rung on the priority ladder.

it looks to me that emotions are running very high from the get go

I wonder if the OP would fill us in on this

getz

both my wife and myself are catholic [she spanish catholic me english catholic[that what i was christened but i never practiced in fact i was even a choir boy in the church of england]we married in a registry office ,when are first child was born we both decided we would not want him to grow up with any religious , church of england/catholic dogma-so we had a naming ceremony in the babtist church,if he ever decided at a later date to take up any spacific religion, he wont have any guilt from any religious brain washing to get over

VeryBerry

CDfm wrote: »

His head must be wrecked and it must be a fairly awful time for him. Emotional blackmail central for the prospective papa though.

It was a fairly awful time for him - but it was also equally as awful for the person due to give birth to the poor prospective papa's baby in 3 weeks time. Also, I wonder could you clarify how I was emotionally blackmailing him? Blackmail to me would imply issuing ultimatiums i.e. "If you don't do this, this will happen." I'm not the one who said "If you don't agree to baptisim I'll do it without your permission." I was always open open to discussion and negotiation.


Anyway, with regards to those of you wondering about my relationship with my Mother-in-Law, I have always gotten on very, very well with her. I'm almost as close to her as my own Mum. She was very supportive of our registry office wedding, as I said, she's not a practicing Catholic herself, which is why all this has come as such a shock. Based on that, I decided to call down to her last night to try and sort things out, because I haven't actually talked to her myself since this all blew-up unexpectedly a few weeks ago. All her apparent opinions have been coming from my husband.

It turns out there was a lot of wires getting crossed, and my Mother-in-law had no idea that there was such a big fuss happening.

It turns out that a few weeks ago the reality of being a Dad finally hit my hubby, and he had a big freak out about the responsibility of looking after a new baby (understandtable). He didn't want to worry me about it, so he went to talk to his Mum instead. She's great, very practical. So she wrote him out a list of every little thing she did with her new babies in the first few months - feeding, changing, vaccinations, baptism etc.

Hubby, of course, took this list as the exact correct way to look after new babies, and planned on following it down to the letter. When I finally talked to him about it, he said he felt that if he did everything exactly like his Mum did (including the baptisim), everything with the baby would be ok. This was his way of coping with the scariness of becoming a new Dad. Again, understandable, but he should really have talked to me about it all, rather than turning it into this big religous debate.

His Mum was really shocked that I thought she would try to baptise the baby without my consent - this was something my husband had come up with on his own and thrown out in an argument with me. As I said, she's not a big Catholic herself, and had no problem with not baptising the baby. Although, she would like some type of family get-together/day out to celebrate the babies birth - so she's more than happy with my suggestion of a naming ceremony. My husband hadn't gotten around to mentioning this to her...

Anyway, after my husband finally sat down and talked to me calmly and rationally, we managed to sort things out. He doesn't want to baptise the baby or raise it Catholic, just as we'd always discussed and agreed upon. He just had a freak out, but he's ok now and is back to himself.

I suppose the other big issue is why he felt like he couldn't talk to me (this has never been a problem before), but he said himself it was because the baby is due so soon, he was afraid I would get very upset. Of course, by not talking to me it made things 100 times worse, but at least its sorted now.

Thanks to all for your help.

CDfm

A lovely update veryberry.

Its a bit daunting becoming a Dad .

Will you guys win the youngest boardsie competition:)

luckat

Thank goodness you've sorted it out! Well done VeryBerry.

axel rose

Thats great news! Sounds like your baby has a lovely family waiting for them.

All you need to do now is put your feet up and wait for the pitter patter of different little feet!

StormWarrior

.

Grawns

so glad that everything is resolved happily. Good luck with the birth, ( hope you've already decided on names )